1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a decompression device-integrated heat exchanger in which a pressure-reducing unit and a heat-exchanging unit of a refrigerant cycle are integrated. In the heat-exchanging unit, high-pressure refrigerant before being decompressed in the pressure-reducing unit is heat-exchanged with low-pressure refrigerant after being decompressed in the pressure-reducing unit. The decompression device-integrated heat exchanger is suitably used for a supercritical refrigerant cycle in which pressure of high-pressure refrigerant discharged from a compressor exceeds the critical pressure of refrigerant.
2. Description of Related Art
In a conventional refrigerant cycle, an enthalpy difference between an inlet side and an outlet side of an evaporator is enlarged by setting the enthalpy of refrigerant at the inlet side of the evaporator to be smaller, so that refrigerant capacity of the refrigerant cycle is improved. However, in this case, an inner heat-exchanging unit is need for performing heat exchange between high-pressure refrigerant and low-pressure refrigerant. Therefore, a new attachment space and a mounting step for mounting the inner heat-exchanging unit are necessary.